Monday, 23 September 2013

Mad Nanna / Mole House

Maybe surprisingly, a 2-piece, all-guitar version of Melbourne, Australia's Mad Nanna showed up last week in Glasgow. Their tipsy juice-enhanced after hours show in the Volcanic Tongue shop was something strangely special that will live long in the memory. Mad Nanna make endearingly ramshackle records in what sounds like a dusty 70s mid-western American basement. What they produce is, on first listen, rudimentary but somehow manages to be much more compelling than that might suggest so stands up well to repeated listens. "I Wanna See You", their latest single for Soft Abuse Records, is a case in point. The bulk of the slightly gruffly sung lyrics are just the song's title repeated and the guitar repeats a simple surging figure over and over with few variations. The drums, too, are delightfully clattery but elementary. As a whole, though, it's totally cohesive and inexplicably addictive like a lot of the more esoteric records I've heard on, say, Gulcheror Columbus Discount. An essential purchase!

Also, out of Melbourne and with an equally compelling new single are Mole House. As with Mad Nanna, they don't think it necessary to over-complicate their music preferring instead to leave space for feeling in their grooves. "Come Around" features one of the best lazily unwinding guitar solos to charm these ears in a while. It's great music to listen to when your eyelids are heavy and you just want to sing along with something soulful whose notes you can conceivably hit. There's simple joy to be had in the act of waywardly singing such a stoned, dreamy tune.